


The Last Time

by CupcakeFlavoredWaffles



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, I'm Sorry, Inspired by Real Events, Katnep- onesided, Nepeta's POV, POV Second Person, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CupcakeFlavoredWaffles/pseuds/CupcakeFlavoredWaffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is it. The very last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Last Time

You can’t stop thinking about that day. Not thinking about it means forgetting, and you’d sooner die than forget. You’ve had a crush on Karkat for nearly a year, and even though you hadn't seen him all summer, it was kept alive by the memory of that day. After all, he had _walked_ half an hour to get to your hive, and guys don’t do that for just anyone, right?

You’re really not sure.

You wish you were.

 

The three hours you spent with him were the best three hours of your life, and at the end of them, Karkat acknowledged that he knew you liked him. But you got nervous and were too afraid of being rejected to give an actual answer. After that day, he’d hardly said ten words to you until the end of summer and then you spend all summer staring at the door of your hive, hoping he’ll show up unannounced.

You start to wonder if maybe you haven’t seen a few too many romcoms.

You stare at the door all summer, never forgetting what happened that afternoon, never forgetting _him_.

 

When school starts up again he's in one of your classes. He comes up to you rather cordially and says hi to you and gives you an awkward hug. After that, though, it’s as if you don’t even exist anymore. You endure it for a while, or at least, for as long as you can. But then he starts to get all cozy with Terezi, and seeing him talk to her all the freaking time, well, it just rubs you the wrong way. After class, you hurry to catch up to him, mentioning that he’s hardly said anything to you since the day he visited your hive. He says he hadn’t realized, but you think he was really just avoiding you.

And then he starts to talk to you again and you're pretty happy because, well, you're horns over heels for him. And this whole time, you've never, **ever** forgotten those last words he'd said to you that day; you’ve never stopped wondering what would've happened if you had told him, never stopped hoping, and never stopped wishing. But you’ve never had the courage to tell him what you wanted to say, even though you had planned it out in your head all those nights when you'd just lie awake in bed because you couldn't sleep because your mind was far practically giving you _whiplash_ from all the thoughts whirling around in it. You never had the courage to give him the letter you'd written him because you _knew_ you would just break if he rejected you or laughed at you.

 

But now, you’ve decided that you're going to do it. You're going to tell him. Actually tell him. Not be a scared little purrbeast and leave him a letter, but actually tell him. And this time, unlike all the times before that you'd told yourself the exact same thing, you haven’t given yourself an opportunity to back out and not tell him. You’ve already texted him and asked him to meet you at school the next day.

And then, you go to sleep. Or, at least, you try to. You can’t though. Of course you can't. You're busy running your lines, making sure you know what you're going to say, rehearsing something to say for every single possible scenario that might happen. Morning comes way too quickly. You get ready; you shower, get dressed, brush your hair and teeth, actually bother with putting on a bit of make-up for once. Finally, you get on the bus to go to school, still drilling your lines, still making sure you haven't forgotten what you're going to say.

 

You’ve been annoying the hell out of your best friend, Equius, by jiggling your leg all the way to school because of how nervous you are. Then you get off the bus and start to go inside, heading to the place where you and Karkat agreed to meet. Then, suddenly, you hear a voice from behind you. It's someone calling your name. It's him. You don't even have to look, you know it's him. _Fuck_. You're actually going to have to do this.

“What did you want to fucking talk about?” he asks, catching up to you.

_‘Right. As if you don't know,’_ you think. But there's no backing out now. “Uh, well, Karkitty, do you remember the day when you came ofur to my hive?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

_‘Well, at least it wasn’t so insignificant that he furgot all about it,’_ you tell yourself silently. “Do you remember what you said befur you left?”

“Nope, why the fuck should I?”

He doesn't remember. Of course he doesn't. But why would he? It’s not as if it would’ve been important to him.

"That day, you told me that I couldn't deny that I at least have some feelings for you," you say, nearly quoting him word-for-word. Taking a breath, you realize you’re so nervous that you’re practically suffocating, that you’d almost forgotten that breathing is necessary to live. You realize that maybe, by the time all of this is over, you won't _want_ to be alive. You ignore that treacherous thought. You're used to ones like it. You breathe out, take another breath in. Repeat. Repeat again. And then, you tell him. "'Some' is an understatement," you say.

He looks at you, looking almost bored. Almost like he can't believe you told him to meet you today **_just_** so you could tell him that. “Yeah, I know. I’ve known for a pretty fucking long time. So has just about everybody else, actually.”

By now, the two of you have already gotten to class; you both have Chorus together. (The boy has great voice, he could get on Broadway if he wanted to.) Unfortunately, you don't have a chance to talk to him again until the bell rings for you to leave class. He leaves the room before you do, having been waiting near the door, so you have to walk a bit faster than usual in order to catch up to him.

As you catch up to him, you can't help but blurt out that the whole purpose you telling him what you did was so that you could out how he feels about you. Fuck. Damn it. No. That wasn't in the plan. You weren't supposed to say that! No! Now everything's going to spiral into scenarios that you never thought to prepare for. You didn’t think you'd something _THAT_ stupid. You're terrified. Terrified of not knowing what to say to him next. Terrified that he thinks you've said something dumb. Terrified that you'll mess up even more. But most of all, you're terrified of the look on his face. He looks like he feels... awkward. _No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! That's not good._ But you wait. You wait for him to tell you. And he doesn't say anything. Finally, you get tired of waiting. You tell him that your hope is killing you, that it's slowly tearing you apart. You say that he should either break your heart completely or make your day. He tells you.  


"There are a lot of other trolls who like me. And there a lot of trolls that I like," he's telling you. You feel like he's avoiding what you're asking. But only because he actually is.

"But am I one of them?" you hear yourself ask.

"Well..."

You nod your head a little bit impatiently, anxious to hear what he's about to say, even though you're sure that you already know.

"I kind of like you," he's saying. You struggle to comprehend what he means by that, then decide to think about it when you're done talking to him.

"You're here," he clarifies, making a vague motion that's about at chest level. For some reason, you get the feeling that the scale starts somewhere around chest level.

You just nod your head stupidly. You don't really remember how to do much else. The two of you just stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds.

After a while, he tries to say something. "Nep-"

"I understand," you cut him off. You probably sound cold and bitter. You don't really care.

 

Swiftly turning away from him, you push your way through the crowd of trolls, trolls that seemed to part around the two of you when you had stopped moving in the busy hallway. Going up the stairs, you're moving so quickly that you nearly trip several times. You want to get away. You want to hide. Yes, that sounds nice. Find a quiet, lonely place where no one will ever find you and just cry yourself to sleep. That's all you want to do. You get to your next class and sit down, pasting on the happy, care-free smile that everyone expects you to wear. The lights go out for a video and that's when, grateful that you sit in the back corner, you let yourself quietly fall apart. Because you know what 'kind of' means. It means no. 'Kind of' is just a 'no' that's been put into a nice box and tied up with a pretty piece of ribbon. That's what 'kind of' is. The rest of the day goes by much the same. You're smiling every time someone's looking at you, but the minute their eyes leave you, the smile fades and the tears come back. When you get home that day, you write your lusus a note, telling Pounce that you had a really bad day and asking him not to wake you. You go to your room and cry yourself to sleep. The next day, you don't go to school. You're sick. Sick of crying. But Pounce makes you go the next day. You have class with him that day. It's every bit as awkward as you thought it would be. Finally, the bell rings and class is over. And suddenly, you can't stand it.

"Kind of means no, doesn't it?" It's not so much a question as it is a statement.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. His face says all you need to know. You feel like someone is twisting a dagger in your heart and you very nearly literally can't breathe as you dash off to your next class, trying to put as much distance between the two of you as you can.

Time passes. Slowly. Ever so very, very slowly... Everyone always says that time heals all wounds, but this one isn't getting better. You wanted him to kill your hope. But he didn't. Sure, he broke your heart, tore it to shreds, and burned the shreds to ashes, but you forgave him anyway. You always forgave Karkitty. Sometimes you wish you wouldn't forgive him for everything he does to you, but in the end, you always do.  
There's a dance coming up. Only a small one, one meant for only the trolls at your school who are taking chorus, but that's the class that the two of you share. You've always loved going to formal dances; they give you a chance to dress up and be gorgeous and girly. Trolls always complement you on how nice you look. These dances have always made you happy. Not this one though.

Karkat's here. And he looks so amazing. _'And he's not yours,'_ you're forced to remind yourself. He talks to you for the first time since the day he broke your heart. You both decide not to try to tiptoe around the elephant in the room and begin talking about what happened that day.

He's apologizing to you now, but you're not quite sure why. After all, it was you who fell for him. It was you who got too close. He tells you that you don't actually know him, and you want to protest to him that you've been friends for almost a year. Something stops you from speaking though, so you say nothing and just let olive-green tears drip down your face. By now, the things he’s saying are all just words; you can’t fully comprehend any of what he’s saying.

You think you can see tears starting to form in his eyes. You’re pretty sure he’s got candy red blood.

 He says that he's too busy for a real relationship, says that you deserve someone who can give you their time, and he tells you that that someone isn't him. He tells you that right now he's just going through a lot of stuff and that he just simply can't have a girlfriend at this point in time. You accept that reason. You understand it. But understanding his reasons doesn't change the fact that you're practically sobbing now. He looks at you with a mixture of emotions on his face: guilt, sadness, concern, sympathy, pity... all the emotions that you don't want people to feel for you. After a moment, his face clears a bit and he hugs you, not minding when you cry on him, leaving olive colored patches on the shoulder of his otherwise pristine suit jacket. He just holds you patiently and lets you cry.

"I'm sorry," he whispers quietly.

And then he lets go of you...  
  
It's the last time you will ever talk to him.  
It's the last time you will ever touch him.  
It's the last time you will ever be this happy.


	2. Epilogue

Less a week later, you've shattered. You haven't just broken, you've completely _shattered_. Nothing is going to make you whole again. There are too many pieces for anyone to put them all back together, not even Eq. No, you're just going to stay shattered like this.

Karkat lied to you. He lied. He had said that he couldn't be in a relationship with you or anyone else, had said that it would be too much for him to handle. And now, less a week after he told you those words that are now so meaningless, so hollow and empty, he's holding her. Of course he is. Those same arms that had been wrapped around you and had held you while you cried -those same arms that had let go of you, you correct yourself in an attempt to make the sight hurt a bit less- were now circling her. _Terezi._ This is what always ends up happening when you fall for someone. Somebody else gets them. It just figures that the matchmaker wouldn't have a match, doesn't it? This is all love is for you. Pain and heartache. 

That's all love is, so this will be the last time you ever let yourself fall in love again.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh... This is actually the first thing I've finished, so please, please, please comment to tell me if it's any good, suggestions, etc. (I'd wanted to write this in third person, but it just sort of came out in second person. Whoops.)  
> (+20 points to everyone who spotted the Broadway Karkat reference)


End file.
